Here’re a few scribblings about Sandals Montego Bay, the diving and the surrounding area. We were lucky enough to go to Sandals for 2 weeks in August 1997 for our honeymoon. It seemed very pricey when we first considered the idea, but being Ultra-Inclusive it turned out to be pretty good value for money.
We finally arrived after the 10-hour flight on a rather cramped Monarch Airlines plane. The first thing to happen was while we were meeting the rep I nipped to the loo. On my way out one of the porters accosted me and tried selling me a bag of loose Cannabis leaves. This set the scene for the holiday. We made our way to the bus for the 20-minute transfer, about 30 yards away, but first had our bags grabbed by porters who then expected to be paid handsomely. Tip no. 1. Don’t give anyone your bags.
On arrival, our bedroom turned out to be the top flat of a two-storey building. The room was very nice and fairly large, but simply decorated. The bed was huge and comfortable, as were the bath and bathroom. We had a big balcony overlooking the beach, which was great for watching the late afternoon electric storms from. Only complaint was the ancient television. I can’t handle too much heat and really appreciate a mid-afternoon lie down in an air-conditioned room, so a decent TV helps. They did have HBO on it though – Home Box Office, the US version of Sky Premiere.
The food at Sandals was excellent. There were at least 5 restaurants to choose from. The Italian restaurant boasted a five course menu which was an immense challenge, but delicious. The open air Chinese Restaurant entailed wandering around the courses and picking what you wanted them cook for you. There was also an A la Carte restaurant and a Steakhouse.
The Steakhouse was good, but being on the beach attracted a lot of insects, which I hate, as I seem to be genetically encoded with “Bite Me” DNA. You could also pop along to Sandals Royal Jamaican or Sandals Inn on the resort bus for a change. SRJ has an Indonesian Restaurant that you have to get to by boat. This was somewhat homely, as the “Traditional” Indonesian boat looked strangely reminiscent of a Viking Longship.
Breakfasts were served on the veranda, and I found them a bit embarrassing. The staff really tried to wait on you hand, foot and finger and too many of the American guests seemed to take advantage of this. The poor guys took quite a bit of stick from some of the ruder guests, so I made a point of asking for nothing and giving them some money when no-one was looking, as tipping is forbidden in principle at Sandals.
Other snacks were available all day, eat as much as you like and they were pretty good both in taste and variety. I found a good game, which was ordering about 4 snacks at lunch time, then giving them to the people who were on the resort selling trips as they didn’t get fed. I had to do this without the Chef cottoning on though, as he didn’t mind who he shouted at!
All of the Sandals staff did their best to give us a really good holiday and the activities were both enjoyable and varied, though you weren’t forced to join in. Strangely the dozen or so Brits found each other within a couple of days and hung around together. Volleyball against the Yanks every afternoon became the daily excersise, followed by cocktails in the Jacuzzi. Nearly all of the British guests were honeymooners, probably because going somewhere this expensive is likely to be a once in a lifetime experience for most.
The bars had a wide selection of drinks, including malt whiskies and champagne. We preferred the piano bar near our bedroom. It had its own pool and Jacuzzi, and inevitably on one of our nights out with the other British guests we all ended up naked in the pool guzzling champagne. You have to have a bash at decadence when you’re basically common, don’t you think?
The resort is private, this means fenced off and guarded. Some people think this means you miss a lot but we weren’t really there to soak up the local culture. To be honest I don’t think there is much anyway, our tours of local markets turned up nothing at all that matched my tastes, and Jamaica is dirt poor, and more worryingly has a very nasty under-streak. When I was in Barbados recently we got chatting to some Barbadians who said that one of their standing jokes is “What would a Barbadian do with a plane ticket to Jamaica? Swap it for a bottle of beer.” Jamaica has hundreds of murders per year and around 60% of tourists complained of being badly hassled in a 1998 survey. Even though the resort is fenced off, the drug dealers canoe around to the beach to sell grass and cocaine at ’’K-Mart’’ prices. If you aren’t that way inclined it can be a bit disconcerting to have it waved in your face continuously.
Don’t think I’m knocking the place too much here, Jamaica is a beautiful, scenic island but being from rural Scotland I just can’t handle harassment on this level.
We spent a couple of nights at the Sumfest Reggae Festival in Montego Bay. This is 4-night festival that goes on all night. Acts we saw included Shaggy and Chaka Demus and Pliers. It was a damn good festival, but again full of hustlers and dealers who seemed unaffected by the large police presence. We didn’t go on many organised trips, but did go to Dunns River Falls, which I found disappointing. Trying to climb up a waterfall with 500 other people is not my idea of fun, and to make it worse I picked up an ear infection. Don’t get me wrong, the Falls are very scenic, but it was just too crowded. We did go horse riding in the mountains and on the beach one day, which was fun. It was an eye opener to see people living in small corrugated iron huts with Marijuana growing up the side, I almost began to sympathise with the endless streams of hustlers.
Sandals provide free scuba diving, one of the main things that swung choosing it. I did 12 dives with the Sandals dive-team. They offered two dives a day as part of the all-inclusive package. The kit was all Cressi-Sub (Low quality Italian), but very well maintained. The morning dives were to a maximum depth of 30m and the afternoon dives to a maximum of 15 metres. Most of the other divers (90% Americans) only had minimal qualifications which meant the Divemasters led everyone about like children, and the dives rarely exceeded 30 minutes in length. The afternoons were worse as the ’’try divers’’ joined in, which meant the diving was like a training pool session.
The outer reef offered quite good diving, with a reasonable amount of life, some nice slow drift diving and a chimney reputedly named “The Widowmaker” by its discoverer, Jacques Cousteau. The inner reef was pretty much devoid of fish. They had Moray Eels in cages for the divers to look at, so it was more like a zoo trip than a dive. The coral was pretty interesting on the other hand, especially if you’ve not done much warm water diving.
This isn’t the most impressive diving I’ve done and I wouldn’t go to Montego Bay specifically to dive. If I were going there anyway I’d definitely take my kit though. There are proper dive operators in the area, who probably offer something better, but I didn’t try them as the Sandals diving was free.
Overall Sandals is probably the most relaxing and pampered place I’ve ever been to. If you care for that sort of holiday, and can afford it, I’d highly recommend it. I probably wouldn’t go to Jamaica as a casual tourist though, at it was a bit too frightening.